Excel 2000 in a Nutshell

Chapter 17. Database Functions

Excel provides a series of functions designed to work with database tables (commonly referred to as lists). A list is considered a database table if it is rectangular and the top row contains the field names. Notice that all of these functions begin with the letter D and that they closely resemble other functions available in Excel. In fact, each of these functions has a non-database equivalent.

The following functions are covered in detail in this chapter:

DAVERAGE	DMAX	DSTDEVP
DCOUNT	DMIN	DSUM
DCOUNTA	DPRODUCT	DVAR
DGET	DSTDEV	DVARP

Use these functions to do the following:

• Determine the number of values in a specific list

• Find the maximum or minimum value in a list

• Determine the standard deviation for a population based on the numbers in a list

• Find the value that meets the specified criteria

The Database Functions

Excel provides a dozen functions to manipulate the values within a database table in a worksheet. These functions, covered in the remaining portion of this chapter, are categorized as follows:

Compare values:

DAVERAGE (find the average value in a column)

DCOUNT (count only numeric fields)

DCOUNTA (count all non-blank fields)

DMAX (find the largest value)

DMIN (find the smallest value)

DGET (get the matching values)

Perform calculations:

DPRODUCT (find the product of the matching values)

DSUM (sum the matching values)

DSTDEV (standard deviation of a sample)

DSTDEVP (standard deviation of a population)

DVAR (variance of a sample)

DVARP (variance ...